Nuit du Tour : Yellow fever grips Corsica

news08.12.2012Pre-race

With seven months to go until the zero hour, the Tour de France paid its first visit to Corsica for the Nuit du Tour. Bernard Hinault started the countdown together with all the Corsicans who eagerly await the event and in the presence of Paul Giacobbi, the President of Corsica's Executive Council.

After dropping by Corsica next summer, the Tour de France will be able to claim it has visited all of France. In a way, it has already started by electrifying all of Corsica! One of the festive events which punctuated the Nuit du Tour (Night of the Tour) saw children from the 360 municipalities on the island symbolically paint the official road markings, all at the same time, in a sneak peek of the three Corsican stages awaiting the peloton on June 29 and 30 and July 1. Bernard Hinault was in Calvi as part of a mini-tour which had brought him to Ajaccio and Porto-Vecchio and would later take him to Bastia...A trip down memory lane for the five-time Tour champion, twenty years after he won the Tour of Corsica.

With the slogan Tocca a Noi ("It's our Turn") sprouting throughout the towns and cities ahead of the race, Corsicans congregated in the four stage towns of the 2013 Tour to celebrate cycling. As giant jerseys appeared on the facade of Bastia's City Hall and Calvi's Salt Tower, a ride was organised for amateur cyclists in Ajaccio, while a curious crowd enjoyed BMX exhibitions and initiation tips. Before the champions hit the road, cycling for everyone took the centre stage in Corsica.